Kochi: The Customs officials investigating the case of gold smuggling through diplomatic baggage channel at Thiruvananthapuram Airport, completed interrogating Arun Balachandran, former IT fellow with the State Chief Minister. Arun was let to go after the questioning session in connection with the case, here on Friday.
He had appeared as told by the Customs officials at the Kochi Customs (Preventive section) office.
Arun Balachandran revealed that the interrogation mostly based on renting the apartment for Swapna Suresh, a key accused in the case. Arun said that he had already clarified on all information regarding the same.
The Customs had served notice to Arun Balachandran to appear for interrogation on Thursday. However, he had informed them about his inconvenience to reach on Thursday. Later, the Customs sleuths told him to appear on Friday instead and he did.
Customs had earlier inferred that Arun Balachandran had ‘aided’ the accused persons in the gold smuggling case. He had arranged to rent the apartment near Secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram for Swapna Suresh. The apartment was used by her and other accused persons in the case to meet up and conspire on the smuggling.
Arun had earlier revealed that he rented the apartment as told by former Principal Secretary Sivashankar. Customs had also received the Whatsapp messages indicating the same. The Customs then decided to interrogate Arun Balachandran to elicit more details on that and initiated the procedure for the same.
The Customs investigation team is to interrogate more persons based on the statements from the accused persons. Anil Nambiar, a media person, was also interrogated by the Customs sleuths earlier this week. In the coming days, many, including politicians, are expected to be interrogated by the Customs.
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